Best of luck with the training! It must be incredibly stressful having to keep your eyes peeled for other dogs while on walks. You never know when you'll turn a corner and stumble on a dog-walker.

Well, it's gotten better because I've adjusted.
I take corners widely and keep Ella tightly next to me. I step before her, so that I can take any surprises first.
And as I said, I walk her in very limited areas. If I have to, I'll continuously circle the block right in front of my house for 20 minutes.
She still gets her exercise, and if we encounter an off leash dog, that I don't spot first, then at least we aren't far from home.

Thanks, guys.
Have any of you ever heard of this form of behavior modification?

I had read about this method in the whole dog journal a while ago. I also am interested to see how it goes.

I'm not a professional 'trainer' by any means, but after reading and looking into CAT, it seems like a unique, but useful training technique. Not positive reinforcement, but not exactly negative reinforcement either. You aren't feeding the dog cookies, but you aren't jerking them around either. The dog is rewarded for good behavior by having the 'bad object' taken away. The dog is (for lack of a better word) 'corrected' for negative behavior by being forced to endure the thing which it dislikes.

Someone was saying that this can be like flooding the dog. Just from what I've heard about the method, this doesn't seem to be the case. After all, in order to know that your dog has DA of this degree, clearly the dog has been in a situation in the past in which the object of its distaste (in this case, another dog), was within its comfort zone/threshold. It sounds as if every time Ella is on a walk and another dog comes around the bend, it is in her threshold. CAT is merely having that other dog 'come around the bend' in a controlled environment, with a trainer standing on, and a dog that you know wont react on the end of the other leash. So it seems that, at least in a case such as this, there isn't much further downhill to go. Worst that happens is that Ella is 'flooded' with the other dog (as she is during every walk in which she sees another dog) she reacts, and wont settle down. Which wouldnt be any worse than it sounds like it is now. It's not like their muzzling her and throwing her in a coop with 5 other dogs. **Thinks of Caesar M.**

Of course, I haven't actually used this treatment, but it seems like a really useful correctional training tool when used with dogs that already have difficult "issues". Obviously you wouldn't use it with a dog that doesn't already have issues. So I wish you the best of luck, and I'd love to hear updates.

It is a negative reinforcement method, though.
But the thing is, people think negative reinforcement is bad; it isn't.

Not unless you are reinforcing an unwanted behavior.

This is how +/- reinforcement and +/- punishment were taught to me in my abnormal psych. It was the easiest way to get it. So it's just the gist:
*Positive reinforcement- you give something to someone to make them feel good, or to reinforce a behavior (hopefully you are reinforcing a positive/good behavior):
Dog sits, you give cookie to dog to reinforce a sitting behavior again. That's
positive reinforcement.

*negative reinforcement-you take away something to make someone feel good or take away something to reinforce a behavior:
Ella sees other dog, Ella freaks out, Ella calms herself down, trainer walks away with dog (the dog Ella doesn't like) and Ella feels good now because the dog is away. HOPEFULLY, you are reinforcing a calming, good behavior. But the calming behavior has to happen first, before the dog is taken away. If all goes well, your dog will LEARN to think that
A. not all dogs are bad and they will not be hurt by an encounter with another dog.
B. to think about calming itself and not reacting because if it calms itself, then bad thing goes away. Which I can totally see what CP is talking about how you want to avoid reinforcing avoidance behaviors because, just because a dog can calm itself around another dog, you don't want the dog to think that if it calms itself ALL THE TIME, the bad thing (the dog) will go away ALL THE TIME. Because the dog may NOT go away ALL THE TIME.

Punishments. These are generally the bad thing.
Positive Punishment-you give something to someone to make them feel bad. You punish to STOP a behavior. You never CHANGE the behavior, though. You don't teach a dog to CHANGE their behavior, only to not do something when you are around because they want to avoid receiving something unpleasant (think a prong pop, a smack, yelling, hitting).

Negative punishment- you take away something from someone to make them feel bad. You take away something to punish a behavior in hopes to stop the behavior.
Again, not teaching anything good here, just bad stuff, really.
Take away a teenager's car keys because they came home late.
You take away television because your son didn't do his homework.

though, I'm not sure how negative punishment would work with dogs. My brain is tired and hot because I just got back from my walk with Ella.

[QUOTE=GoingNowhere;1153398]I had read about this method in the whole dog journal a while ago. I also am interested to see how it goes.

I'm not a professional 'trainer' by any means, but after reading and looking into CAT, it seems like a unique, but useful training technique. Not positive reinforcement, but not exactly negative reinforcement either. You aren't feeding the dog cookies, but you aren't jerking them around either. The dog is rewarded for good behavior by having the 'bad object' taken away. The dog is (for lack of a better word) 'corrected' for negative behavior by being forced to endure the thing which it dislikes.[QUOTE]

It actually IS negative reinforcement in it's most organic form. and there is also a flooding element though it is extremely short duration and never breaking threshold enough to cause the typical flooding fall back. Again, this is not a technique that I would use on every dog (anyone who knows me knows how I feel about aversives) but for some, like Ella, it can be the method that finally allows her to regain a big part of life.-

EDIT - Oops, I should have read Chews post before I wrote mine...

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